The 2013-2014 National Roadside Study of Alcohol and Drug Use by Drivers revealed an encouraging trend of declining alcohol use by drivers. The data collected by this study, along with the overall decline in alcohol-related fatalities documented by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System, demonstrate promising evidence that “drunk driving” education and enforcement initiatives are creating positive change While it is encouraging that the survey found only 8.3 percent of drivers were positive for alcohol, law enforcement should take note that researchers found over 20 percent of weekend nighttime drivers tested positive for at least one drug other than alcohol—an increase from the 16.3 percent in 2007. These drugs included, among others, cannabis, sedatives, narcotics, stimulants, and antidepressants. As can be expected from recent legislative changes in many U.S. states, the drug with the sharpest increase in use was cannabis. Weekend nighttime drivers who tested positive for the drug leapt from 8.6 percent in 2007 to 12.6 percent in the 2013–2014 study.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in 2015, seat belt use in passenger vehicles saved an estimated 13,941 lives in the United States. Over the last two decades, g...

The number of fatalities involving motorcyclists in the United States has recently decreased from a peak of 5,112 deaths in 2008. A total of 4,693 motorcyclists died in crashes in 2015, according to t...

Traffic safety programs form an integral component of an effective, comprehensive law enforcement operation. Unfortunately, not all law enforcement executives—perhaps even all those reading this col...

In 2015, more than 10,000 people were killed in traffic crashes caused by alcohol- and drug-impaired drivers in the United States. Even though tremendous progress has been made in combating this prob...

In Arizona, a law enforcement officer rarely goes a single day without seeing someone driving on a highway or roadway with a mobile phone or other electronic device in their hand that is causing the m...

Traffic Incident Management (TIM) is the planned and coordinated multidisciplinary process used to detect, respond, and clear traffic incidents as quickly as possible while protecting the safety of on...

The 2013-2014 National Roadside Study of Alcohol and Drug Use by Drivers revealed an encouraging trend of declining alcohol use by drivers. The data collected by this study, along with the overall dec...

Technology advancements are transforming society on a daily basis, and this reality is especially true of automotive transportation. The modern motor vehicle is a computer-controlled machine that is b...

Over the past several decades, the United States has made great strides in traffic safety. It has been a collaborative effort among federal and state governments, law enforcement, community leaders, a...